Parked Car Conversations
by roryleigh
Summary: Just a series of one-shots I imagine to have taken place between the girls. I've always found parked car conversations to be the most honest and vulnerable ones. Please read and review!
1. November, 1985

She reached up and adjusted her rearview mirror, angling it to reflect the carseat in the back. The baby in it in it stirred slightly in her sleep, but Lorelai couldn't see her in the dark. She could only hear her soft breathing, a gentle reminder of the little life she was now solely responsible for.

"What am I going to do?" the girl whispered. With a sudden urgency, she pulled off the road into an empty parking lot, outside of a closed convenience store, and turned off the ignition.

She sat there in silence for awhile, listening to the baby sleep, willing herself not to cry. Images of her mother, her father, and Christopher invaded her thoughts and she closed her eyes tightly against them.

"Rory, what am I going to do?" Though her question was directed at the child, she spoke it with her head thrown back against the seat, face turned towards the sky.

"You deserve so much more than this. Better than this. God, what have I done?" She pushed back her hair from her face. "I'm not fit to be a mother. I'm just a kid, Rory. I'm going to fail you."

Lorelai leaned her arms against the steering wheel and pressed her forehead against her palms. She stared down at her lap in the dark, hot tears sliding across her skin.

"I'm going to fail you, just like I failed Mom and Dad and Chris. I'm sorry, kid." She hit the wheel with the heel of her hand in anger. "I'm _sorry_!"

The outburst disrupted the silence and startled the one-year-old, who woke and began to cry. Lorelai cursed under her breath and climbed into the backseat. She unbuckled the harness and lifted the swaddled baby up and against her chest.

"Shh...shh...it's okay, Rory. I'm sorry." A sliver of moonlight illuminated the soft, downy chestnut hair on the girl, and the teenager smoothed her hand over it and kissed her head. Rory's cries were subsiding, and her lids were beginning to droop back over her baby blue eyes.

"Go to sleep, babe." Her voice was hushed and soothing. "I'm sorry."

She shifted the baby's weight across her abdomen, and wrapped her arms protectively around the small body. In a murmur so low it could be mistaken for breathing, she whispered, "I've got you."

Rory made a little cooing noise as she drifted off, and her tiny fingers wrapped lightly around Lorelai's pinky. Her lips twitched upward, and she sighed daintily. Lorelai felt herself smiling ever so slightly down at the child in her arms, at her daughter. She was overwhelmed with strong feeling of love, and for an instant she wondered if Emily had ever looked at her in this way.

But as soon as the thought had come it was gone, chased away and replaced by set determination.

"I've got you," she said out loud. A little stronger this time.


	2. February, 1984

"Mom, pull over."

"Lorelai, we're on a major road, I can't just pull over on a moment's notice. Don't be ridiculous."

"Pull. Over."

Emily Gilmore shot her daughter a sideways glance. "All right, all right, I'll pull over." She flipped on her blinker and moved the big SUV off of the road. Before she even pulled the parking brake in place, the teenager had thrown open the door and was bent over on the side of the road, retching.

"Oh my God, Lorelai, what has gotten into you?"

The girl straightened up shakily and wiped her mouth with her sleeve, to her mother's disdain. The older woman was leaning forward over her steering wheel, watching her daughter from behind big sunglasses.

"You're not motion sick, are you? You've never had an issue on this road before."

"No, Mom." Lorelai ran a hand through her hair, agitated. Her back to the car, she closed her eyes and sighed.

"Well," Emily said evenly, "if you're finished, I'd appreciate if you would get back in the car. People are staring."

Lorelai pressed her lips together, turned on her heel, and climbed back into the passenger's seat. Her heart was pounding against her sternum, and she had a fleeting thought about whether this is what it felt like to have a heart attack. Her schoolbag lay on the floor by her feet, filled with calculus notes and an essay due at the end of the week. She almost laughed, because to her backpack, her teachers, and everyone else, she was no different from every other sophomore at Hartford Academy. Little did they know.

She pulled the heavy door shut and tugged her seatbelt down silently. Emily put her hand on the gear shift and glanced in her rearview mirror at the approaching cars, waiting for an opportunity to merge back onto the road. At that moment, while staring down at her chipped pink nail polish, Lorelai blurted out, "Mom, I'm pregnant."

The silence in the car was deafening.

Then finally, typical Emily style, the older woman simply said "Okay."

"Okay? That's it? Your only daughter is _pregnant_ , and that's all you have to say?"

"We'll discuss this later, Lorelai." she responded tersely, staring straight ahead.

"No." Lorelai reached over and threw the car back into park, pulling the key out of the ignition. She ignored her mother's scolding. "We'll talk now. Please, Mom."

After a moment, Emily sighed. "How long have you known?"

"Um..about a week," she answered carefully, surprised by her mother's cooperation. "I borrowed a strip test from a girl at school when I began to suspect something."

"Lorelai…" The disappointment in her voice was painfully clear.

"It was an accident, Mom-"

"Of course it was an accident, Lorelai! I would hope you aren't so dense that you would go and get yourself knocked up on purpose." she snapped.

She blinked back tears. "Mom, I wanted to tell you differently, because I knew you'd be mad."

"You're throwing away the life your father and I spent the past sixteen years building for you. Of course I'm mad, Lorelai, did you expect me to celebrate?"

"I'm not, Mom, I'll finish school, and I can still figure out college, I can try. I was going to tell you and Dad together, after I told Chris-"

"Oh, Christopher doesn't even know?" Emily cut in, exasperated.

"No, Mom, I was going to-"

"I can't talk about this right now."

"Mom! Please, for once, I actually need to talk to you about something, don't you care?" she cried.

Her mother looked over, seeing hurt and fear and a little bit of desperation behind the set defiance in her daughter's bright blue eyes. Waiting, waiting, pleading with her to answer, answer, please answer, please.

"I do care," she said finally, and took a deep breath. "The first thing I'll do is set up an appointment with my OB/GYN, so everything can be properly handled. I'd like to keep this between our family for now, is that clear? I don't want the ladies at the DAR finding out yet. And we'll have a tutor come to the house to keep you up to date on schoolwork. As for your coming out party..."

"Mom, stop." Lorelai interrupted. "I don't want to talk about that stuff. I want to talk about right now, about you and me and this...this baby, inside of me." She rested a hand over her abdomen, the tiny bulge under her bulky school sweater. "I'm scared," she confessed.

Emily reached for the key and started the engine back up.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out. You always do," she said coolly.

Lorelai stared at her for a long moment before drawing away, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning her head against the cool glass window. She didn't cry. Unknown to Emily, she had already made her choice. _It's just you and me, baby,_ she thought as they pulled back onto the road, headed towards a house that felt less and less like home. Underneath her skin, against her lingering fingertips, she felt the tiniest of flutters. _Just you and me._


	3. August, 1989

Lorelai pulled into the empty parking lot in front of the faded brick building. Stars Hollow Elementary. She stared at the sign, a bittersweet feeling in her chest. In the backseat, her daughter was doing the same, her seatbelt still buckled, backpack neatly zipped and sitting upright beside her.

"You ready, Ror?"

School was all Rory had been talking about for the past few weeks, ever since they had made the trip into town to enroll her at the beginning of the month.

The almost five-year-old nodded, her tangled hair falling into her face. Lorelai chuckled.

"Come here," she said, and motioned to the passenger seat. Rory unbuckled and climbed over the console, her blouse coming untucked as she did. She had insisted on wearing her nicest shirt for the first day of school, even though it was just a pale pink button-down they had gotten secondhand from a coworker. Lorelai carefully tucked it back into the little denim skirt, and turned Rory so the back of her head faced her mother. She rummaged through her giant purse, moving aside old take-out receipts and junk she'd found around at the inn, finally uncovering a plastic brush and a big tortoiseshell clip lying at the bottom. Eyeing the clip, she decided it was not practical for a kindergartener, and pulled out the elastic band she'd used to throw her hair into a ponytail. It fell in dark, messy waves down her back and she made a mental note to ask Mia if she would cut it sometime soon.

"What do you think, braid or ponytail?" she asked, running the brush gently over Rory's head.

"Hmm… braid please."

Lorelai smiled softly, taking her time folding the fine strands over each other into a little French plait. Her daughter sat patiently, flipping through the pamphlet for the school for the hundredth time.

"Are you excited, Rory?" She finished the braid and wrapped the elastic around it, letting the thin tail brush the nape of her neck.

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna miss you today." Lorelai bit her lip, feeling a lump rise in her throat. She'd never been separated from Rory for this long before. The child turned around, her eyes meeting her mother's, and silently crawled over to sit in her lap.

"I already miss you, Mommy," she replied, nestling her head against Lorelai's chest, like she used to do as a baby. Lorelai pressed her lips to Rory's head and stayed like that for awhile, Rory's small arms wrapped around her waist.

Cars began to pull in and park, full of other excited kids and parents. Lorelai watched out her window as a couple in their early thirties walked inside holding the hands of a nervous little girl, about Rory's age.

"Do you want to go in?" she asked softly.

"In a minute." Rory sat up and watched the other families as well, brushing a stray hair out of her inquisitive eyes. Lorelai gently tucked it behind her ear, watching her daughter with pride and admiration. She blinked quickly to stop herself from tearing up, and busied herself with conversation.

"This is a big day, huh? Are you excited to meet the other kids?"

"Yes." Rory smiled shyly.

"You're going to have an amazing time."

"How do you know that, Mommy?" she giggled.

"I just do, kiddo."

Rory grinned at her, a gap in her front teeth and rogue freckles across her nose.

"Do you have your book?"

"Yes, and an extra in case I get bored."

Lorelai laughed. "Only you would be worried about needing two books for a school day."

Rory frowned, her eyes worried. "Should I leave it? Will the other kids think I'm weird?"

"Oh, no. No no no. You're perfect," she reassured her. "I love you, babe."

"I love you more," she answered, her little voice strong and unwavering.

Lorelai looked at her, soaked in all her little details- the tiny braid, the scooped collar, the serious brows over bright blue eyes. "You're a great kid, you know that? I promise to tell you that as often as I can, Rory, because I want you to grow up knowing how loved you are and believing you can do anything. I'm going to support you all the way, okay?"

"Okay," the child answered nonchalantly, reaching for her bag.

"I promise you." Lorelai said, so softly she wasn't even sure Rory, busy putting on her backpack, heard. "Hey, kid, can I have one more hug?"

Rory threw her arms around her mom and squeezed her fiercely. "I'm ready." she declared.

"Okay." Lorelai answered, taking a deep breath. She smoothed down her clothes, took one last look at her not-so baby, and pushed the car door open. "Let's go."


End file.
